Manchester Gas & Heating

Manchester Gas & Heating Professional boiler service and repairs in Manchester.

Ever handed over for a boiler service and wondered what you actually paid for? Our new blog opens up that hour behind th...
08/09/2026

Ever handed over for a boiler service and wondered what you actually paid for? Our new blog opens up that hour behind the casing. An annual boiler service is instrument work, not guesswork. A flue gas analyser samples what your boiler sends up the flue and shows exactly how cleanly it is burning, because a boiler can look immaculate and still be burning badly. A pressure test at the meter answers the question every household quietly wants asked: is anything leaking? Then come the internals, the seals, the safety devices and the system checks around the boiler itself. The guide also explains the paperwork. Your service record is the evidence that keeps a manufacturer warranty valid, and manufacturers including Worcester Bosch and Vaillant expect a service every year. A landlord gas safety certificate is a separate legal document, and the blog covers the difference properly. With summer ending, this is the month to get booked in before the cold arrives and the diary fills. If your boiler is due its yearly visit, give us a ring on 07960 042563 and we will get you booked in.

Read more: https://manchestergasandheating.co.uk/inside-the-annual-boiler-service-what-your-engineer-actually-checks/

One room roasting, another freezing? Nine times out of ten nothing is broken. Your heating controls are just fighting ea...
29/08/2026

One room roasting, another freezing? Nine times out of ten nothing is broken. Your heating controls are just fighting each other.

Your heating works in layers. The programmer decides when it runs, and that is all it does, it has no idea how warm the house is. The room thermostat measures air temperature and tells the boiler when to stop. TRVs, the valves with numbered dials on your radiators, trim each individual room. Zoning splits upstairs from downstairs so they can run separately.

Three things we see constantly:

Fitting a TRV to the radiator in the same room as the thermostat. They then compete. The TRV shuts the radiator down as the room warms, so the thermostat never quite hits its target and keeps the boiler running for the whole house. That radiator should have no TRV, or its head left fully open.

Treating TRV numbers as degrees. They are not. They are relative settings and they differ between makes. Turning it to five does not make the radiator hotter, it just keeps the valve open until the room is warmer. Radiators run at whatever temperature the boiler sends out.

A seized head. Very common on valves nobody has touched in years. The pin underneath sticks and the radiator is stuck on or stuck off no matter what the dial says. That is often the entire reason one room never warms up.

And the big one: turning the thermostat up does not heat your house any faster. The boiler makes heat at the same rate whatever you set it to. A higher number just means it runs for longer and uses more gas.

Rooms heating unevenly? Call us on 07960 042563.

Read more: https://manchestergasandheating.co.uk/heating-controls-explained-trvs-zones-and-getting-your-system-to-behave/

Got a hot water cylinder rather than a combi? Then this one matters, especially if yours is unvented and has never been ...
20/08/2026

Got a hot water cylinder rather than a combi? Then this one matters, especially if yours is unvented and has never been serviced.

Quick way to tell which you have: look in the loft. A big cold water tank up there means a vented system, gravity-fed, which is why the pressure at your taps depends on how high that tank sits. No tank at all, and a cylinder covered in valves with a pipe running outside, means unvented. That one is fed straight off the cold mains, so you get strong showers without a pump and can run more than one outlet at once.

The catch with unvented is that it is a sealed pressure vessel. Water expands as it heats, so the cylinder carries an expansion vessel, a pressure reducing valve, relief valves and a discharge pipe. Those are mechanical safety devices, and they can seize, scale up or lose their charge over time. That is why an annual service is a Building Regulations requirement, not a nice-to-have. An engineer checks the vessel charge, exercises the relief valves to make sure they open and reseat properly, and verifies the thermostat and overheat cut-out.

Seeing water drip from a pipe outside your house? On an unvented system that is the relief valve discharging because something upstream has failed, usually the expansion vessel losing its air charge. It is a warning, not a nuisance, and that pipe must never be capped off.

Water gone lukewarm, running out sooner than it used to, or rumbling as it heats? Usually scale on the coil, a failing immersion element, or a thermostat that has drifted.

Give us a ring on 07960 042563 and we will sort it.

Full details at https://manchestergasandheating.co.uk/hot-water-cylinders-explained-vented-unvented-and-what-yours-needs/

Has anyone built a cupboard, a stud wall or a loft room around your boiler flue? If so, it needs checking.The flue is th...
12/08/2026

Has anyone built a cupboard, a stud wall or a loft room around your boiler flue? If so, it needs checking.

The flue is the sealed duct that carries combustion gases out of your house. On a modern condensing boiler it is a pipe within a pipe: exhaust goes out through the middle, fresh air for the burner comes in around the outside. Because it is sealed, every joint and seal along its length is what keeps those gases on the right side of the wall. A crack or a slipped joint lets them into the room instead, and carbon monoxide has no smell, colour or taste to warn you.

The fault we find most often is a flue that has been boxed in by building work. Loft conversions, kitchen refits and extensions all enclose flues that used to be in plain sight. Once hidden, nobody can see if a joint has moved, and anything leaking collects in that void. Industry rules require inspection hatches so an engineer can actually see the joints and confirm the flue is sound.

Terminal position matters too. There are minimum clearances from windows, doors, boundaries and the ground, and an extension, new decking or even a fence panel in the wrong spot can breach them without anyone realising.

Worth watching for: sooty marks around the flue or above the boiler, odd condensation in the boiler room, a lazy yellow flame where it should be crisp blue, or a boiler that keeps locking out for no obvious reason.

If a CO alarm sounds, open windows, get everyone out and ring 0800 111 999.

Flue work is Gas Safe registered engineer work only, no exceptions. Call us on 07960 042563.

Read more: https://manchestergasandheating.co.uk/boiler-flues-and-ventilation-the-safety-checks-you-cannot-see/

That small black canister on the pipework near your boiler is doing more work than almost anything else in your heating ...
08/08/2026

That small black canister on the pipework near your boiler is doing more work than almost anything else in your heating system, and it probably needs emptying.

It is a magnetic system filter, and its job is to catch heating sludge. Sludge is iron oxide, the same stuff as ordinary rust, and it forms because the steel inside your radiators sits in water permanently. Over the years it builds into a fine black sediment that settles wherever the water slows down: the bottom of radiators, the low points in pipe runs, and worst of all the narrow waterways inside the boiler. Once it starts coating a heat exchanger, your boiler burns more gas to deliver the same heat.

The filter catches it two ways. The canister is far wider than the pipe, so water slows on entry and heavier particles drop out. A strong magnet in a sealed sleeve then grabs anything magnetic going past, which is most of it.

Here is the bit that gets forgotten. A filter fills up. Once a year an engineer needs to drain it, wipe the magnet clean, check the seals, restore the pressure and dose inhibitor back in. Most manufacturers now require a filter and an annual clean as a warranty condition, so a missing service record can cost you a claim later.

Signs worth watching for: radiators hot at the top but cold at the bottom, dark or gritty water when you bleed one, or a filter nobody has opened in years.

It is not a DIY job. The canister is part of a pressurised sealed circuit joined to a gas appliance, so it is Gas Safe registered engineer work only. Give us a ring on 07960 042563 and we will take a look.

Read more in our blog: https://manchestergasandheating.co.uk/magnetic-system-filters-how-they-protect-your-boiler-from-sludge/

Thinking of turning the boiler off completely until autumn? It is worth a second thought. A boiler that sits unused for ...
30/07/2026

Thinking of turning the boiler off completely until autumn? It is worth a second thought. A boiler that sits unused for months can seize up, because the circulating pump and the diverter valve stick when water stops moving around them. It is one of the most common reasons we get called out on the first genuinely cold day, when the boiler makes hot water but the radiators stay stone cold.

The good news is that it is easy to prevent. Run the heating for ten to fifteen minutes every couple of weeks through summer, leave the hot water side on, and book a service before autumn so an engineer can free any stiff parts and check the pump. A planned summer visit is far less stressful than an emergency in October.

Our Gas Safe registered engineers cover Salford, Swinton, Worsley, Pendlebury, Seedley, Prestwich, and Kersal.

Call 07960 042563 for a summer service.

Read more in our blog: https://manchestergasandheating.co.uk/boiler-left-off-over-summer-why-idle-boilers-seize-up-and-how-to-prevent-it/

Is your boiler losing pressure? That little gauge on the front tells you more than you might think. Your boiler and radi...
21/07/2026

Is your boiler losing pressure? That little gauge on the front tells you more than you might think. Your boiler and radiators are a sealed loop of water, and it needs to sit under steady pressure (usually 1 to 1.5 bar when cold) to heat your home properly. Drop below 1 bar and many boilers simply shut down to stay safe.

Topping it up with the filling loop is a safe job for most homeowners, and we explain exactly how in our new guide. The thing to watch is a pressure that keeps dropping within days. That usually means a small leak or a failed expansion vessel, and no amount of topping up will fix it. Summer is the ideal time to have the cause traced, so your boiler heads into autumn holding pressure.

Our Gas Safe registered engineers cover Salford, Swinton, Worsley, Pendlebury, Seedley, Prestwich, and Kersal. Call 07960 042563 to book a visit.

Full guide on our blog: https://manchestergasandheating.co.uk/low-boiler-pressure-why-it-keeps-dropping-and-how-to-fix-it/

Radiators cold at the top? Rooms upstairs that never quite warm through? Summer is the ideal time to put both right, whi...
15/07/2026

Radiators cold at the top? Rooms upstairs that never quite warm through? Summer is the ideal time to put both right, while the heating is off and there is no rush. A radiator that is warm at the bottom but cold across the top has trapped air inside, and a quick bleed clears it. Just remember to top your boiler pressure back up afterwards, as bleeding lowers it.

The step most people skip is balancing. Radiators nearest the boiler naturally grab the most hot water, leaving the far rooms with whatever is spare. Balancing evens that out so the whole house heats at a similar rate and the boiler does not have to run flat out. It is fiddly, which is exactly why it is worth doing once, properly, in the calm of summer.

Our Gas Safe registered engineers cover Salford, Swinton, Worsley, Pendlebury, Seedley, Prestwich, and Kersal. Call 07960 042563 to book a summer service.

Full guide on our blog: https://manchestergasandheating.co.uk/cold-spots-and-noisy-radiators-how-to-bleed-and-balance-your-heating-this-summer/

Notice a rumbling boiler or weaker hot water this summer? Hard water is often the culprit. When water is heated it leave...
11/07/2026

Notice a rumbling boiler or weaker hot water this summer? Hard water is often the culprit. When water is heated it leaves behind limescale, a chalky deposit that settles on your boiler’s heat exchanger. Even a thin layer forces the boiler to work harder and burn more gas, and it is the reason many boilers get louder and less efficient as the years go by.

The good news is that limescale is one of the few boiler problems you can get ahead of. A magnetic filter and inhibitor protect your heating circuit, a scale reducer protects your hot water side, and a power flush clears out anything already there. Doing it in summer means losing hot water for a few hours rather than heat for days, and your boiler goes into winter running clean.

Our Gas Safe registered engineers cover Salford, Swinton, Worsley, Pendlebury, Seedley, Prestwich, and Kersal. Full guide on our blog, or call 07960 042563 for a summer service.

Read more: https://manchestergasandheating.co.uk/hard-water-and-limescale-how-to-protect-your-boiler-this-summer/

Carbon monoxide gets treated as a winter worry, but the gas hob, the oven, and the boiler restarted after weeks of stand...
19/06/2026

Carbon monoxide gets treated as a winter worry, but the gas hob, the oven, and the boiler restarted after weeks of standing idle all carry the same risk in June. Summer adds one more: barbecues. A cooling barbecue keeps producing CO for hours, and bringing one into a tent, garage, or conservatory is behind tragedies every single year.

Three checks worth ten minutes this week: press the test button on every CO alarm and look for the replace-by date (sensors expire after five to seven years), check your hob and pilot flames burn blue rather than yellow, and glance at the flue terminal outside for nesting debris. Landlords also need an in-date CP12 and an alarm in every room with a fixed combustion appliance (gas cookers exempt), by law.

Anything look wrong? Our Gas Safe engineers cover Salford and the surrounding areas with combustion analysers on every van.

More on our blog: https://manchestergasandheating.co.uk/carbon-monoxide-safety-in-summer-what-every-home-should-check/

Address

31 Hallwood Avenue
Salford
M68WW

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Manchester Gas & Heating posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Manchester Gas & Heating:

Shortcuts

Share

Category